The Only 127 Things I Need

So the house is on fire and you’ve got ermmm, twenty minutes (it’s a slow burning affair) to drag everything you really need in this life on to the front lawn. Or keeping your home depends on raising a silly amount of money so you’ve got to sell everything but the things your world rely’s on. Or heck, maybe you’ve just come over all minimalist and decided its all just gravy…

You’ve got to choose 127 things to keep. 127 things because this is the number Donna Wilkinson has declared constitutes life’s essentials, but not having yet read the book yet I’m not entirely certain that those things I consider essential would really keep anyone else’s boat afloat but here it is regardless: the 127 things I couldn’t live without…

Do feel free to come up with something slightly more worthy than big earrings…

1. Washing Up Liquid. Give me a bottle of it and I can clean the house from top to bottom.

2. A packet of the cheapest bourbon biscuits you can find in the supermarket. Posh ones just won’t do. They need to cost about 22p to really thrill me.

3. The hospital bracelet they attached to Finn’s wrist when they told me he was suffering from either cancer or cystic fibrosis. Always look on the bright side Dear Doctor…

5. An old pottery figurine of an old man who looks like my Grandad. It broke in half and I glued it back together in a gruesome fashion, but oh how I love it. So much so that it is hidden under my bed because it doesn’t quite fit my shabby chic aesthetic. Sorry Grandad.

6. An ancient copy of The Hobbit I read when I was seven. The day I fell in love with reading.

7. A cheese grater. For cheddar and marmite granary toasties.

8. A flannel because I’ve got a grubby son. I’m one of those Mothers who grabs her child in a head lock and scrubs. Could be worse Son, some mummies lick a tissue and wipe it all over your cherubic little face…

9. My ribbon tied bundle of 130 Gulf War love letters from a soldier called Dale. Bless our teenage hearts. We were so young. And they’d given him a gun. Terrible, terrible, terrible…

11. Snuggles. I mean I know I can’t pack them in a suitcase but I wanna take them with me regardless. Only the other day I squashed up to my poor Mum and forced her to hug me properly on pain of depriving me of essential human contact and thus causing me to shrivel up and die…

13. My mobile phone. I kiss it sometimes because I’m thirty six going on eighteen and some conversations make me smile in a silly fashion. And it’s got an MP3 player. Though what that’s for I’ll probably never know…

14. Jellybeans from a jar. A whole new culinary obsession.

15. Ruby by The Kaiser Chiefs on cd. Because hearing Finley scream Ruby Ruby RUuuuuuuuuuuBY! on the way to nursery every morning makes me giggle. I love my son to bits.

16. Smudgy kohl eyeliner. I look a bugger without it. And some days I look a bugger with it too.

17. My Dad’s Wednesday night sweet delivery. A bag of Tangtastics and a quick chat. Lovely. (And yes Mum, I do know how very, very spoilt I am!)

18. Emmerdale Farm. It’s a long term love affair. Not sure how I’m gonna get it in a trunk though.

19. The Victorian gold locket that was my eighteenth birthday present from my Mum and Dad.

20. My pink washing up bowl. People who wash the dishes in the sink make me wanna bash them up. Lordy, who made me Goddess of the pots and pans?

21. A George Forman grill. Because I’m lazy. And I like stripy food.

22. Finley. Because he is my bestest dream ever.

23. The slightly bashed up bust of a young girl that was the first thing I bought for the interiors shop I owned when I was twenty three. And then stole from myself.

24. Padded coat hangers. They strike me as gloriously luxurious.

25. A crumpled up newspaper cutting of a man I don’t know wearing a t-shirt that says “Living so large it hurts”. I’ve had it since I was fifteen and still to this day cannot understand it’s appeal. But I smile at him like he’s an old friend.

26. My yellow journal. From the days before the damned Internet got a stranglehold on my creativity.

61. A handwritten note from the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion explaining why my poem was the National Prize Winner. Proof I can write when I put my mind to it.

62. A picture of me in the local paper, wearing a pretentious row of pearls on the day I won said prize. Awful. But funny. Which just about sum’s me up really… awful but funny.

63. The Steve McQueen postcard tucked into my Venetian glass mirror. When I want something I fight like hell for it. Because it’s true. And sometimes I don’t even know I’m fighting. No wonder I’m bloody exhausted.

64. Water. Out of the tap. Ice cold please. With a big chunk of lime.

65. A pretty plate and a spoon. A girl has got to eat.

66. A pink crocheted bib a BrocanteHome reader once sent me. For the little girl I’m going to have one day. Probably when medical science has invented geriatric maternity wards.

90. My calendar. All of a sudden I’m one of those women who doesn’t know there’s a bank holiday looming unless I check the wall twice a day.

91. A bag I can sling across my body postman style and forget about.

92. My box of stencil paints. For remembering who I used to be.

93. Colgate toothpaste. The only one that doesn’t put me off food for the rest of the day.

94. Tweezers. I pluck past myself.

95. The cupboard with the birds painted on it in Finn’s room. Because I was hot and eight and a half months pregnant when I painted it and it’s precious.

96. The heart shaped baskets on top of my wardrobe. Filled with paper memories.

97. Harvest Morn Chocolate Crunch cereal from Aldi of all places. I make a special trip and buy it in bulk. Milky cold yumminess for not so hungry suppers.

98. Red wine. Preferably a nice bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. That I will refuse to share because it’s mine. All mine.

99. High heels. They hurt and they give me blisters but I feel shuffily and sloppy without them and I like being able to see over everybody else’s head.

100. Pure lavender oil. Life-saving loveliness.

101. The silver sequined top I bought last week. Because I feel like a sparkly butterfly in it. Every girl deserves to feel like a sparkly butterfly occasionally.

102. The occasional Sayers cheese and onion pasty. Because you can only get them in Liverpool. And when I’m not at home that is what I ache for.

103. The very silly glitzy ring I bought when I sold my engagement ring. My you’re gonna be just dandy ring…

104. The picture of Finley looking the spitting image of a frog in the few hours after he was born. A picture only a very besotted new Mummy could love.

105. The diary of my sixteenth Summer.

106. A cucumber or twenty nine. Oh how I love you cucumber. Please love me back for always.

107. Egyptian cotton sheets. Warm and cool. How clever is that?

109. Spanx style knickers (never to be revealed in public). As recommended by Gok. Actually scrap the ugly knickers. I neeeeeeed Gok Wan. And I will have him.

110. The goose feather filled pillow I drag everywhere. Even into the receptions of swanky hotels.

111. Bread. Any but preferably the white french kind that gives me insufferable tummy ache half an hour later. Told you I was a fool.

112. Now this may be stretching the concept of need a bit too far, but in Cedar Farm the other day I saw an olive green costume ring I can’t live without. But I had forgotten my purse. Won’t be long till you are on my finger Sweetie…

Comments

This is such a good post…
After having lost almost everything that was dear to me when a tornado took not only my home, but 95% of my town of Greensburg, Kansas, I'm afraid I may not be able to find 127 things left that are important to me…

Alison, I know behind this list and the humor is a lot of pain. I know because you and I are floating in parallel boats these days. I shall pray that you are moving on to much better things because there is a plan and it isn't living under the bridge. Blessings…